Arilda, or Arild, was an obscure female saint from

Oldbury-on-Severn Oldbury-on-Severn is a small village near the mouth of the River Severn in the South Gloucestershire district of the county of Gloucestershire in the west of England. The parish, which includes the village of Cowhill had a population at the 2011 ...

in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

county of

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

. She probably lived in the 5th- or 6th-century and may have been of either Anglo-Saxon or

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

origin. Arilda was a virgin martyr who, according to John Leland, was slain by a youth named Municus when she refused to have sex with him. Two churches in Gloucestershire are dedicated to Arilda, one at Oldbury-on-Severn near her traditional home, a second (" St Arild's Church") at

Oldbury-on-the-Hill Oldbury-on-the-Hill is a small village and former civil parish in Gloucestershire, England, ninety-three miles west of London and less than north of the village of Didmarton. History Oldbury-on-the-Hill has been inhabited since prehistoric t ...

. Both places were called "Aldberie" at the time of the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

, suggesting that their names may be derived from the saint. Leland claims that Arilda lived in Kington, a hamlet in the parish of Oldbury-on-Severn, where there is a

holy well A holy well or sacred spring is a well, spring or small pool of water revered either in a Christian or pagan context, sometimes both. The water of holy wells is often thought to have healing qualities, through the numinous presence of its guar ...

bearing Arilda's name. The waters from the well are said to run red with her blood, though a more prosaic explanation is the presence of a red algae of the ''

Hildenbrandia ''Hildenbrandia'' is a genus of thalloid red alga comprising about 26 species. The slow-growing, non-mineralized thalli take a crustose form. ''Hildenbrandia'' reproduces by means of conceptacles and produces tetraspores. Morphology ''Hildenb ...

'' genus. There was a shrine to Arilda at

St Peter's Abbey, Gloucester Gloucester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Peter and the Holy and Indivisible Trinity, in Gloucester, England, stands in the north of the city near the River Severn. It originated with the establishment of a minster dedicated to ...

, which is now Gloucester Cathedral, but it was destroyed after the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Notes

References

* G. Jones, "Authority, Challenge and Identity in three Gloucestershire Saints' Cults", ''Authority and Community in the Middle Ages'' (ed. Donald Mowbray, Ian P. Wei, Rhiannon Purdie), 1999, , pp. 124–127 * Julian M. Luxford, "The art and architecture of English Benedictine monasteries, 1300–1540: a patronage history", Boydell Press, 2005, , p. 134 * Alan Thacker, Richard Sharpe, "Local saints and local churches in the early medieval West",

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2002, , p. 509 *

David Verey Sir David John Verey CBE (born 1950) is an English banker and philanthropist. Early life Verey was born on 8 December 1950. He went to school at Eton College and later received a Master of Arts degree in English from Trinity College, Cambridge. ...

, ''Gloucestershire: the Vale and the Forest of Dean'', The Buildings of England edited by

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...

, 2nd ed. (1976) , p. 314 * David Verey, ''Gloucestershire: the Cotswolds'', The Buildings of England edited by

, 2nd ed. (1979) , p. 351 {{DEFAULTSORT:Arilda Mercian saints People from South Gloucestershire District English Roman Catholic saints Southwestern Brythonic saints Anglo-Saxon saints Late Ancient Christian female saints 5th-century Christian saints 6th-century Christian saints